


Study Session

by stammed_cleams



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Friendship, Gen, Getting Help, Panic Attack, feel good story, he needs to talk, hes damaged, just some affection, long talks, only the bad kids with anxiety, riz just needs help ok, venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24310561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammed_cleams/pseuds/stammed_cleams
Summary: Adaine and Riz get together to study before finals and end up talking about anxiety and how to deal with it.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Riz Gukgak
Comments: 7
Kudos: 107





	Study Session

**Author's Note:**

> alright gucci gang i got another angsty little nugget for yall today. now if you love me and want me to thrive GO and read all my crown of candy fanfics. right now theres only one BUT perhaps soon? another? we shall see >:) i promise there's political and vaguely erotic tension in there!! what else could you possibly want!!
> 
> anyway. enough bitching. enjoy this rather solemn piece about my perfect boy and girl!

Riz and Adaine didn’t invite the other bad kids to their study sessions if they actually wanted to study. Many times they’d allow them to come and allow themselves to get distracted until it was more of a vaguely school-oriented hangout session. And there was nothing wrong with that - as a matter of fact, sometimes it was fun to have something to do to begin with, until it was later abandoned in favor of some stupid game or some hot gossipy topic. But if they were actually trying to work Kristen would get immediately distracted by anything more noticeable than a bird out the window. Fabian and Fig would tolerate it for about ten minutes each before they both decided that this was  _ stupid,  _ rolled their eyes, crossed their arms, and gave up. Gorgug was perhaps the most well meaning of any of them, but the unfortunate fact of the matter was that going at a pace that he would understand meant that Riz and Adaine wouldn’t really get anything done. Most of the time, they  _ were  _ invited. But finals were next week, so this was the real deal. 

In study sessions, the rest of the bad kids served as speedbumps - precautions that stopped Riz and Adaine from getting too into their heads. Without them, they became machines. At the moment they were in Riz’s room, on the floor, in the dark, surrounded by open books. Adaine’s deep-rooted need for perfection was just about as strong as Riz’s natural hyperfixation, and pretty much as soon as they sat down their faces went blank and their voices went monotone, and they turned into sponges for information. They didn’t look up at each other once during the study session - they stared down at books and shot off intermittent trivia with all the precision and ruthlessness of a pouncing cat. Right now it was Riz’s turn to interrogate. There were bags under his eyes, and his looming pose and unreadable face made him look strikingly similar to his mother in an interrogation room. Adaine’s eyes were closed, perfectly undisturbed, as if floating on water.

“On what plane can you find Amelith the Cold?”  
“The sixth level of Hell.”

“List the conjugations of the verb ‘to cook’ in Dwarvish.”

“ _ Ish hem, esh hem, irin-oren-aren hen, ishen hemmek, eshen hemmes, irinen-orenen-arenen hennai. _ ”

“What materials are necessary for the plane shift spell?”  
“A forked metal rod worth at least 250 gold pieces attuned to the desired plane of existence.”

“Who was the Elven Oracle of the Myrendian Age?”

This was the first question to throw Adaine off. She scrunched up her nose, eyes still shut. “Uh…” she said. “Uh- N-Nanariel Tyrennius?”  
“Tyrennius was the Halalim Age, Myrendian was Gireth Yvera,” Riz recited to her sharply, “What is the name of the tallest mountain in the Mountains of Chaos?”  
Adaine froze again - now she’d been thrown off beyond the repair. That was the other thing the other bads kids did - by slowing them down they slowed down the anxiety, too, which typically ran rampant for both of them anytime they studied together. She made an uncomfortable noise and buried her face in her hands for a moment, vigorously rubbing her eyes. For the first time, Riz looked up from his book, concern in his eyes. “Adaine?” he asked softly, “Are-are you okay, are you having a panic attack?”

She shook her head. “Mm - no,” she said. “But I feel one coming on, I think I need to collect myself for a sec.” She closed the book on her lap and set it aside, silently beginning to clear her space by stacking books and papers and then pushing them away to the side of her. 

Riz nodded. “Gotcha,” he said, “Need anything? I can turn the lights on.”

“No, I like it dark, it’s nice!” she answered, “I’ll be fine, I’m just gonna take a little break, that’s all.” Riz needed no more than that to believe her. Promptly he went back to the textbook in his lap, continuing to scribble notes onto the lined piece of paper crushed into the crease. Adaine, in the meantime, crossed her legs a bit tighter, went down the line of things to relax - unclench the jaw, let down the shoulders, loosen the abdominals - and let out a long breath. For a few minutes she took long breaths, four counts in and eight out, and gently tapped around her eyes and her jaw with the two first fingers of her right hand. Perhaps the most helpful thing Jawbone had taught her was how to catch a panic attack long before it cumulated into something painful or disruptive. In just a few short minutes the inklings of fear and irritability had melted away into nothing, and she was just sitting in a room with her friend again. Give it a few more, though, she told herself. Don’t want to start studying and immediately get overwhelmed again. 

With one final deep breath and a stretch of her back, Adaine opened her eyes, and smiled.  _ That  _ was better. She caught a look at Riz, the first good look she’d gotten since they’d started studying several hours ago. She hadn’t noticed before but he didn’t seem… great. He had dark circles under his eyes and was repeatedly tapping his foot against nothing, breathing shallowly, scribbling frantically in the margins and then wincing as if writing pained him. His face had gone from merely stoic to nothing short of grim, even angry, and he’d gone from making jokes at his own expense and smiling from time to time to quick, cold, rapid-fire studying. He was grinding his teeth something fierce, shoulders up, back hunched. She wondered the same thing everyone always wondered when they saw Riz - when was the last time he  _ slept? _

“Hey, how’s your anxiety been, dude?” she asked flippantly, with a nod of her head. 

Riz only looked up for a half a second, but in that time she could clearly detect the wariness in his eyes. No matter how she tried to hide it, he could pick up on the concern in her voice, and he  _ hated  _ talking to people who were concerned about him. “Um…” he said with a shrug, “Fine.” 

Adaine nodded. She waited a few more moments, before elaborating. “It’s just you only ever really vaguely reference it as like a joke or whatever, I mean do you know - do you know what kind it is, have you ever talked to Jawbone about it?”  
The first thing that entered Riz’s mind was ‘ _there’s different kinds?’_ but for fear of looking stupid, he didn’t say that. He shrugged flippantly again, as if it was no big deal. “I’m dealing with it,” he lied. As a matter of fact, he’d gotten so engrossed in his work at around 3 AM last night his joints had felt like they were filled with sand, like if he wrote another word he would throw up. Admittedly, he almost did. He was beginning to get the same feeling again - couldn’t stop and couldn’t go on, it was focus purgatory. His hand was shaking where he held his pencil, and he hadn’t even had any coffee. All he could hope was that Adaine was done talking - her voice _hurt._

Adaine observed him carefully. He was on the edge of nonverbal - it was an understatement to say he didn’t want to talk. Then again, she couldn’t leave him like that. She spoke softly, in short sentences, picking up on his winces. “Riz? I’m going to take this,” she said softly and intentionally. Very gently she reached forward and took the book that was on his lap, pulling it away from him and gingerly closing the paper inside it. She set it beside herself, neatly atop her own pile of books. Riz appeared confused as he lifted up his arms, eyes following the book before they landed on Adaine. 

“What are you - why are you - why did you,” he stammered out breathlessly, “Why did you take that, I need- I need that.”

“Okay, I think you might be having a panic attack,” said Adaine distinctly, “And we’re both going to take a break.” 

Riz’s eyes lingered for a moment on his book, both in relief and desire. He just had a few more pages before the end of the chapter. Then again, every word of it made him feel sicker. His face remained steady, unable to react. He only nodded - he didn’t have the stamina to talk about anything other than the textbooks. But this didn’t make any sense - he knew what a panic attack was, it was something violent, physical. People felt like they were going to die, that’s what Jawbone said. This was just the inability to talk or react or really move other than in pursuit of his work. Sure it was frustrating when it happened (usually after hours of work very late at night) but who was he to call this a panic attack when other people felt their hearts exploding or their lungs running out of air? He was  _ fine.  _ He tried to communicate this to Adaine but he only got as far as opening his mouth, seemingly frozen in place. 

“Alright, Riz, you don’t need to answer me, just try and do as I say, can you do that?” Adaine asked kindly. Riz went on persisting.

“Adaine… I’m fine,” he managed out in a whisper, “I’m - I -” he tapered off again, and then tried to force it once more. “Don’t… I’m- I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” He would have loved to elaborate, but that one phrase seemed to be all that he’d mastered, so he used it over again. The difficulty in saying it however seemed to make waves of tension run through him, and with a wince he shook out his writing hand as if he’d given himself a cramp. Which he had - but of course, that wasn’t why.

“I know you’re fine, I’m just going to show you something,” Adaine assured him, “Now. Relax your jaw. Your shoulders.”

With little choice left, Riz obeyed. He naturally let out a breath, feeling a soothing ache run along his shoulders where, he realized, he’d been tense for hours, if not days. He stretched his neck, and calmed slightly. Adaine nodded. 

“Okay now, try and slow your breathing down. In for four, out for eight.” 

_ Now this is just silly,  _ Riz thought, but nonetheless obeyed. He took a slow breath with Adaine, and sure enough, he felt the hummingbird patter of his heart begin to slow, his hands no longer jittering on his knees. His shoulders relaxed a bit more, and the sound of Adaine’s voice wasn’t nearly as grating anymore. Within a few breaths he went from intense to surprisingly tired. Like being put under a sleep spell he could feel dreams poking into his thoughts, his eyelids drifting shut if he allowed them. He hadn’t been tired like this since he was a kid, excluding any times he was poisoned or cursed, of course. Most of the time he rode the usual anxiety - what was, according to Adaine, a panic attack, which he still wasn’t sure he believed - all the way until his brain knocked him on his ass by force. He felt like, if he wanted, he could  _ choose  _ to go to sleep. It was a bewildering feeling.

With several minutes of feeling a little embarrassed but obediently breathing in silence, his words began to come back to him, and the feeling fell away completely. He began to feel like he could move and speak again. To try it out he lifted a hand to run it through his hair and tiredly over his face, stretching out his skin, his shoulders. The sand in the joints feeling had gone - he had come back to ‘normal’, his ‘normal’ being really somewhat rare.

He let out one last heavy breath, before looking up at Adaine. “Hoo!” he exclaimed, smiling sheepishly, “Sorry that… doesn’t usually happen. When people are around.” He looked at her carefully, stretching out his shoulder. “Was that - was that like a sleep spell or something?”

“No, that wasn’t a spell,” answered Adaine, “That was just a normal breathing technique Jawbone taught me a while ago. Riz, do you have panic attacks a lot?”

Riz creased his eyebrows. “I don’t… think so,” he answered, “Panic attacks make you feel like you’re gonna die, right? Like you start sweating and freaking out and stuff.”

“No, not necessarily,” answered Adaine, “Sometimes it’s… well it’s exactly what it looked like just happened to you. Does that happen a lot to you, though? Like, how often?”

“I mean… I guess like… maybe every other night?” he guessed, “It’s usually, well, okay. It’s not usually like- like _that_ because it’ll happen after I’ve been working for a while and there won’t be anyone nearby, so like I don’t need to talk or stop or anything. I’m fine by the morning, it’s really not a big deal.”  
Adaine gave him a shocked look. “Riz, that’s not… no,” she objected, “How do you get to sleep every… oh, right, you don’t. Well, I guess that would be why…” she said, talking it through on her own. Why had it never occurred to her? _Stupid,_ it was so obvious. 

Riz shrugged, burning under her gaze.  _ Why  _ did people always have to worry about him? “Well,” he said helplessly, “I dunno, I guess.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” said Adaine, raising a hand, “I’m just saying… you know you don’t have to… feel like that.”

“You don’t have to tell me to talk to Jawbone, trust me, everyone’s already told me to,” he said sharply.

Adaine appeared taken aback. “Okay,” she answered, “Why not?”

Normally Riz would dismiss this question. But he was feeling a little calmer, and very tired. He thought for a moment, staring at the corner. “Well…” he began, anxiety already beginning to act up again, “I just don’t… really like… talking to people about that stuff? I don’t really understand why like, Fig and Kristen and stuff want people to know like ‘the real them’ or whatever so bad. I kinda feel like, I am who I try to be for good cause, I don’t see why everyone thinks that’s so unhealthy.”

Adaine nodded at that. She reacted surprisingly logically, which was an enormous relief. Riz had never been comforted by hugs and tender looks, he always preferred stern and stoic logic. There was a nostalgia to it. Frankly, it reminded him of his mother. “I think that… most people are afraid that if the version of them that they project the other people is too different that no one really loves them, and everyone just loves the persona instead?” guessed Adaine, “I think the threat of being unlovable is so scary that people put themselves in a position where they can’t see whether they’re loved or not, and then after they get to know someone they start to want to take the risk to find out.”

Riz gave her a look, considered it, then shrugged. “I know who I am,” he argued. He then smiled slightly, a wistful look in his eyes. “I’m The Ball,” he told her, “My friends know it too, I don’t need to prove anything. I don’t feel like I’m pretending. There’s no - there’s no ‘deeper version’ of me you’re missing out on Adaine, I’m me!”

“No, I know that you’re you, I know,” she answered, “I know we all know you and we all care about you. But you still… hide things, you still keep a lot to yourself.”

He shook his head. “I just don’t like dredging it up,” he answered. He swallowed, and shifted in his seat. “Adaine, is this about my dad?”

Adaine looked down at the ground, thinking for a moment. What a very telling thing to say. “I think that… if that’s what your mind jumped to then probably,” she said, “But he wasn’t what I was referring to, no. As far as I’m concerned, he’s your business. Some people get catharsis from talking about things and some people don’t, I just wonder why… you won’t seek help, why you don’t want to talk about the things that make your life harder even when someone’s trying to fix them. You seem like a really logical guy, I would have assumed you’d just do what needed to get done to finish your work.”

Riz, shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know I’m just… handling it,” he said defensively, “Nobody wants to listen to me just talk about my problems, I deal with it and I don’t bother people with it.”

“Riz,” Adaine answered firmly, “ _ Do  _ you want to talk about it?”

He looked at her, and considered it. No matter which way he looked at it he strongly, vehemently _didn’t._ The things he had to deal with were like rocks on the road. He couldn’t lift them up, so he just paved over them, and if the road was bumpier from then on, so be it. After a while of paving and repaving however, the road had gotten harder and harder, but not hard enough to stop him. Just hard enough that he slept three hours for every twenty. Just hard enough that he started shaking every time he worked for too long. He could break it all open, try and move them now, start all over. He could talk about it. But the idea of that much work made him feel sick. His heart was racing now at the very prospect of it. “No,” he answered sharply, “In fact, I think I should get back to work.”  
In a sharp and newly shaking movement, Riz reached out for his book. Ever so softly, Adaine reached out and placed a hand over his, stopping him. “I don’t want to tell you what to do,” she began, “But trust me when I say that this is _going_ to make it worse.” 

“What do you want from me, Adaine,  _ what?! _ ” 

Adaine knew that Riz was obsessive, but she had never seen someone try and take his work before, not like this. It had only ever been in the beginning stages of his working, after an hour, maybe two, and they’d been at it for five. That, and it was typically for something important, and they were only interrupting him to show him something more important, or something related - shifting his work, not stopping it. She looked at him now, the closest she’d seen him to the goblinoid stereotype, hands in fists and fangs bared. Quickly, she leaned back. She was afraid - not  _ of  _ him, but  _ for  _ him. Her silence spoke volumes, and suddenly a look of realization dawned on Riz’s face.

“Adaine, I… I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry,” he scrambled, raising his hands. “It’s like I said, this never happens when other people are here,  _ shit…”  _ He breathed in sharply, and very suddenly he was crying, letting out a shaky breath as tears started rolling down his face.

“Riz, it’s okay,” Adaine assured him.

“Did I scare you?”

“No.”

“Because if I- if I scared you-”  
“You didn’t.” Adaine placed a hand on his shoulder, “I could never be scared of you.”

“Fabian told me that a creature from the Nightmare Forest attacked you early on, just after Fig had kidnapped me,” Riz suddenly blurted, a bit louder than necessary, like it took work to get out. “It looked like me. He said it almost tore his eye out. I never let you see me when I’m like this because I’ll get… pretty intense and stuff, and sometimes I think when I snap at you you see it again. I scared you once, I can’t do it again. Everybody worries about me, all the time, whether they’re scared for me or scared of me all my friends do is… fucking…  _ worry!”  _ He threw his arms up in the air, tears streaming down his face and his voice raising. He hadn’t had an explosion like this in as long as he could remember. He was on a roll now, seemingly hovering in midair, and he may as well have gone on. “I don’t know how to deal with any of this, alright, I don’t know how to deal with the fact that everybody’s fucking worrying about me all the time, I don’t know how to deal with my mom when she gives me that look like I have fucking cancer, I don’t know how to deal with the shit I saw in the Nightmare Forest and the dreams I still have and the feeling that everyone’s gonna move on without me if I don’t take a break from my work and they’re all gonna be killed by something I missed if I do, and I don’t know how to deal with the fact that even though he’s literally dead and he literally couldn’t have done anything to stop it, I am  _ still  _ pissed off about the fact that my dad left me and my mom alone! There, I said it!” Riz let the echo of the words bounce around the room, much louder than he intended. He let out a loud exclamation of nothing in particular, just a teary, frustrated sound, almost a shout, as all of what he’d just said played back to him slowly. 

Adaine blinked, jaw hanging open. “... Wow,” she eventually said, “That was… a lot.” Riz didn’t answer, still reeling himself. With the same firm tone of voice, Adaine went on, after a moment of processing, “That was… really impressive.”

Riz let out a long breath, and rubbed the bridge of the nose - he felt like a totally empty tube of toothpaste. “Ugh…” he groaned, “Oh, that was a lot. That was a lot, I just said a lot of stuff.”  
“I know, you went a little crazy, dude!” she enthused, “How are you feeling?”

“Like I just drank like, 12 cans of redbull,” Riz answered honestly. 

“I’ve- I’ve never had redbull, is that a good thing?”

Riz earnestly shrugged. He was silent for a moment, touching his chest and feeling the race of his heart. There was a moment of quiet, Adaine very carefully evaluating the next good step. She knew a lot about mental health nowadays, but not about the mental health of other people. Just because she could hand out books didn’t make her a counselor. 

“I’m sorry if I… pushed you into something,” she began boldly, “But I find it very impressive that you just told me all that. I am… sorry you feel that way, and I… I want you to know that people don’t just  _ know  _ how to deal with it. They  _ learn.  _ Everyone learns, Riz. You are not… failing, or weak, you just… haven’t learned any ways to deal with it yet. That’s what therapy’s about, it’s not just… people patting you on the back and telling you everything’s gonna be okay - I mean, it can be if-if that’s what they feel you need, but my point is… It’s about solving a problem. Anxiety, no matter how you learn to cope with it…  _ is  _ a problem! And frankly, Riz, I can’t think of anyone better suited to… buckle down and look through the evidence and find the solution to a problem as you!” she encouraged. She reached forward, and gingerly placed a hand over his. Riz still looked somewhat in a daze. “Alright?” she asked carefully.

Riz looked at her, hand unmoving beneath hers. His face remained steady, though tears welled reluctantly in his eyes. “Um… yeah, I… I guess I could do that,” he said, his voice low and beginning to break, “You really think if I… went to Jawbone about this stuff it would… make it easier to do stuff?”  
“I do,” Adaine encouraged, “And don’t just think I’m saying that because he’s my dad, I only say Jawbone because he happens to be the person closest to us in that field, but there are _lots_ of counselors in Solace that have _lots_ of different approaches-”

“No, no, Jawbone’s… fine, it’s not… about him.” He was quiet for a long time, looking longingly at the stack of textbooks, leaning back on his hands. Eventually, he came to a realization, and said gently to himself. “I… I think I’m scared.” He laughed, as though only now recognizing that Adaine could hear him, shook his head and uttered, “That’s stupid…”  
“It is _not_ stupid,” Adaine assured him, “Look, anxiety and panic attacks and all that… it _sucks,_ but let me tell you, the only think more daunting than just having it and dealing with it is actually trying to attack it from the root. Don’t think that because we’ve fought monsters and devils and stuff that it makes it any easier to deal with this stuff, mental health is _very_ real!” She paused for a moment, hearing her rhetoric begin to sound eerily similar to that of her father. “If you like, I can go with you! Unless that’d be weird but I think sometimes it’s… scarier to be alone.”  
Riz swallowed, pushing off tears for another few seconds. “Yeah,” he said gently, “Yeah, you can come.”  
“You mean you’ll do it?”  
He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. It took him a good few seconds to get out, “... Yeah.”  
Adaine grinned, leaned forward, and wrapped her arms around him. 


End file.
